Like Mother, Like Daughter
by Irhaboggles
Summary: Legends said that those who dabbled in magic would find the magic intertwining itself with them just as much as they intertwined with it. Even though the world knew Aurora was 100% human, her resemblance to Maleficent could just be so uncanny at times. The world couldn't help but wonder if the girl wasn't part fairy after all.


Legends said that those who dabbled in magic would find the magic intertwining itself with them just as much as they intertwined with it. These legends were not totally baseless. On a mundane level, the legends were built around the theory that said that environment shaped a person just as much as a person shaped environment. This became clear whenever a person would move to one place from another. If a human used to live in a relatively flat area only to move to the mountains later, their body would begin to change to better fit that environment. The same logic applied when magic was involved. Those who spent too much time around magic were bound to experience changes. The most recent and relevant example came from the young Queen Aurora.

Aurora was human through and through, but she had grown up in the Moors. Right before her 16th year of life, the young queen, who had been but a princess in hiding back then, fell into the orbit of a Dark Fairy named Maleficent. Although their relationship had started off in uneasy waters, as the time passed, the two became closer and closer until they were practically mother and daughter. All those who saw Aurora could see Maleficent's influence over her.

Even though Aurora seemed endlessly bright, sunny, happy and kind, there were things she said and did that strongly resembled Maleficent. For example, her passion about unity and equality combined with her strong aversion to war and discrimination against anyone over anything was an incredibly Maleficent behavior. Her willingness to protect her family and the Moors was also something she'd "inherited" from the Dark Fairy. People would come to visit Aurora in her court and listen to her speak and the way she presented new policies and ideas with a fiery passion and an enthusiastic zeal was so very much like Maleficent.

"Like mother, like daughter," a dignitary once noted with amusement as he listened to Aurora rage against those who would exploit the Moors for their natural resources, taking everything they needed and wanted without giving anything in return. She didn't mind people using the Moors when they ended it, but she minded the senseless and heartless exploitation and abuse of what the Moors had to offer. If humans needed Moorish resources, Aurora was more than happy to set up trade agreements between her kingdom and the Fairy Kingdom, but if people were stealing, or taking things out of greed, then that was where Aurora put her foot down. Like mother, like daughter indeed.

But as the years continued to pass and Aurora continued to explore the human world more and more, other similarities between herself and her adoptive mother began to pop up. They were always apparent and present, but back when Aurora lived solely in the Moors, all of these little changes and similarities remained mostly unnoticed. It was only after she began to head outside and explore the world of humankind that the differences highlighted themselves. It wasn't just Aurora's attitudes, behaviors, beliefs or personality. It was her very appearance.

Aurora might not have biologically belonged to Maleficent and she might not have had a single drop of magical blood in her veins, but after 21 years of living in the Moors, the magic of the land started to hold over Aurora and show some very obvious changes. It just never became visible until Aurora started standing beside other humans who had spent their entire life in the human kingdom.

The young queen never grew wings or horns, but there were other physical changes that made her stand out while in a crowd of normal humans. She was wispier than most. It was not necessarily that she was skinnier, but there was just something slender, flexible, supple and graceful about her body that most humans did not naturally possess. She was leaner and narrower than most. And her limbs and fingers were longer and thinner than most other humans. Her face was smaller, narrower and pointier. She was very bendy. Her skin was also an almost transparent color at times. That did not mean people were able to see through Aurora's body, but while most people of a similar skin color could classify themselves as looking peachy or creamy, Aurora's skin wasn't that colored. She wasn't white like a bedsheet, but she was not peach-colored either. It was something more ethereal than that.

Her hair took on a similar color, looking more white than gold with each passing year, but it was not the whiteness that came with age. It was a whiteness that sometimes seemed translucent, like some of the mist of the Moors had become trapped in her long, flowing locks. And sometimes, especially on windy days, Aurora's hair would seem to float just a few centimeters off her shoulders. It was hardly noticeable, but her hair would move in a slower and more fluid motion than a normal person's. Her eyes would also seem to glow at times, especially under the right lighting and conditions. For example, especially under the moon, Aurora's eyes would seem to become like little moons themselves, but since Aurora could not see her own eyes without a mirror, and she often spent her nights alone or in the Moors, no one ever noticed.

But it wasn't even just appearance either. The influence of the magical world on Aurora's physiology also manifested in her actions. The blood of the fairies seemed to flow through her veins when she walked, because she would almost seem to glide and float rather than step. And when she ran, her endurance was much higher than a normal human's. She still was not strong or fast enough to fight an armed soldier, but for a royal lady, she was very physically powerful. She also had heightened senses. She could see and hear farther than a normal person and her sense of smell was highly advanced. She was not a bloodhound, but she was the only human she knew who could identify nearly every plant or berry by smell alone, even if it wasn't a particularly smelly plant.

Her voice was also lilting and sweet, especially when she was trying to be persuasive or diplomatic. Especially during high-stakes meetings, Aurora's charm and grace seemed to radiate off of her being in waves and the way she would hold herself and speak usually captured the eye and ear of everyone in the room. There was even a rumor that if she really tried, Aurora's voice could be so sweet and enchanting that she could sing someone into a sleep as deep as the sleep she fell into upon her 16th birthday.

All of these changes were small, but strangers would notice because they added up and they all made her look vaguely… inhuman. It was not a bad look, for Aurora did not look evil, ugly, dishonest or hostile, but the differences became noticeable as one piled up on right after another

"But it's so odd and uncanny!" one lord once remarked as he watched Aurora walk on by with Maleficent by her side. Everyone knew they weren't biologically related and while Aurora didn't look that much like Maleficent, there were still little quirks here and there that were close enough to make people stop and wonder.

"Like mother, like daughter!" a fellow lord agreed, also staring at the mother-daughter duo as they walked on by. Sure, it made sense, Aurora living in the Moors was bound to cause some physical changes until she sort of began resembling Maleficent just by proxy of the fact that they lived together, but even so, it was still a marvel to see and behold. Aurora's ethereal qualities made others jealous when they weren't awed instead.

"How do you do it?" one particularly jealous countess had once asked.

"Do what?" Aurora had laughed in reply, genuinely unaware of what the countess was jealous of.

"How do you look so young, healthy and pretty? What are your secrets? Is it magic? Or are you just lucky? What makes you look so… otherworldly?" the countess elaborated, eyes glittering with interest and envy.

"Well, I don't know really. I just get a lot of fresh air and execersize and I eat well," Aurora replied, shrugging. The countess glared at her, certain that there was something else Aurora was refusing to tell, but Aurora genuinely had no idea what else to say. All the differences that other people were noticing were things that went totally over her head. She didn't realize how fairy-like she could look and act. She didn't realize how different she seemed to those who had never even set foot in the Moors before.

"What was that all about?" Maleficent asked in amusement as she watched the snooty countess walk off in a huff.

"She was asking me how I stayed so young and healthy," Aurora replied.

"What ever did you tell her?" Maleficentwas really amused now.

"Simply that I got fresh air and execersize and healthy food! And yet she walked away angry! I don't understand it," Aurora shook her head.

"Don't let it trouble you," Maleficent advised. "Humans can be petty. Do not waste your energy on trying to understand it," and that was advice Aurora was more than willing to take. In a matter of minutes, the young queen had forgotten all about the rude countess. Before long, Maleficent and Aurora had lost themselves in conversation once again, hardly aware of all eyes and whispers surrounding them.

"Like mother, like daughter, eh?" one baron asked as he looked to Aurora and Maleficent.

"I'll say!" his brother agreed. "Girl's a spitting image!"

"You think she might actually be half fairy?" the first baron's wife asked.

"No! Of course not!" he replied.

"Then do you think it's magic, perhaps?" the wife suggested, and all around them, similar speculation had started.

"Did Maleficent do this? Or did Aurora?"

"Was it intentional or accidental? Did it just happen? Was that what happened when you spent too much time in the Moors?"

"Or has Aurora figured out a way to give herself fairy blood?"

"Should we be concerned? Am I the only one who finds it all unsettling? The girl is a human! Not a fairy! What is she doing?"

"Maybe she isn't doing anything. Maybe that's just what happens sometimes."

People were endlessly interested in the human from the Moors and they wanted to know why it was that she looked so much like Maleficent. The baron's wife managed to get closest to the correct answer. While Aurora was entirely human, her many years spent in the Moors were changing her into something of a half-fairy, so it was magic and fairy blood both, though it was not quite the way everyone else seemed to think. It just happened when one spent their life living in the forest amongst other magical creatures. Their nature was always bound to rub off on the girl and "infect" her, but while the rest of the world speculated, Maleficent and Aurora remained blissfully unaware, content just to enjoy one another's company and not question a thing about it. They had much more important things to enjoy than petty and banal gossip. They had each other. They really were like mother, like daughter.

**AN: Here's to Assassin Akame again, who wanted a Fairy Aurora fic. IDK if you wanted Aurora to have powers or not, but I wanted to focus more on the concept of little changes than anything big.**


End file.
